As with many words, over the years and with the help of professional deception artists like Frank Luntz, the word "entitlements" has been successfully turned into a pejorative to be used in the never ending fight conservatives wage against social progress. Even though the word "entitlement" means...1) the act of entitling...2) the state of being entitled...and 3) the right to guaranteed benefits under a government program, as Social Security or unemployment compensation......the word-perverters in corrupt media and within movement conservatism, have worked hard to instill a different meaning into the word. To conservatives who use the word "entitlements" as often as they can.....the definition has changed from an earned benefit....to "a mind set of feeling entitled" to something you haven't earned.

This is not by accident. For example: the word "liberal" has been so twisted and abused by conservatives over the past few decades that now fewer Americans than ever realize that the policies which have made America great have come from liberal and progressive initiatives. Truth is, it's difficult to find any historic conservative policies which have significantly changed America for the better. That being said, the one strength of modern conservatism in America is their ability to monotonously repeat phrases and words in order to imbue them with brand new meanings.

This will be a wacky week in Washington. The Roberts Court, the same Court which ruled that corporations equal persons and money equals speech, is examining Obama's Affordable Care Act this week. John Roberts, the beacon of transparency and freedom that he is, has ruled that no teevee cameras will be allowed....but audio transcripts will be released after each of three oral argument sessions. The Village magpies have descended on D.C. like locust, positioning themselves in the ready for the post oral-argument wingnuttery....which is sure to break new records in wankery.

Each Villager will stare into his/her secret decoder ring, and assure you that he/she knows what this or that Justice question means. No one will know anything really....not until the Court issues it's ruling sometime in June. it's all a perfect setup for our feckless corporate media. Corporate media only care about the "game." Policy discussions are much too boring and informing the public about who's lying and who's telling the truth is much too biased and not media's job. That only leaves utter speculation and gossip, corporate media's strong suit....and so the political game of "how do you think today's Supreme Court questions will hurt Obama's chances for re-election?".....will be hot, hot, hot the first half of this week.

By now you've probably heard about the 'shoot-first, ask-questions later' Florida law which led to the recent murder of the 17 year old black youth, Trayvon Martin, down in Seminole, Florida.

Florida calls it's 'shoot-first, ask questions later' law the Stand Your Ground law. I wrote about this Florida law when it was enacted and mentioned that it was a natural result of the thinking which led to the Iraq crime....preventative violence, preventative war....all claimed in the sanctimonious words of self-defense.

As the Contraception Wars have broken out across the country, we've been repeatedly told that the core reason for the battles is "religious liberty" and "conscience". If the big, bad, Obama compels any employer, or any health insurer, to pay for contraception for female employees....all religious liberty in America is in jeopardy.

I've made no secret of my distaste for Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich. The man should have never been elected. His banty-rooster approach to his job led directly to the rallying of worker-supporting Ohio voters to bury SB5 in the supply-side dumpster where it belongs just a few months ago.

For some reason, Kasich never tires of self-aggrandizement, even when he bases it on faulty assumptions....

Rick Santorum took the two old Confederate states, Alabama and Mississippi, last night. But not by much. Santorum won Alabama by 34.5% to Gingrich's 29.3% and Romney's 29%. In Mississippi it was Santorum at 32.9%, Gingrich at 31.3%, Romney at 30.3%.

See a clear cut favorite in any of that data? I don't. When three GOP candidates split the primary vote in the South almost equally 1/3, 1/3, 1/3....among three mediocre candidates....it's no wonder that the bow-tied, dweebish, George Will has all but given up on Republicans taking back the White House this November.

In Da King's latest.....the Obama administration is pilloried over a $10 million contest award for a new fangled, super efficient, LED light bulb. The problem, according to King, other than what's viewed by him as a waste of $10 million, is the opening retail price of Philips Electronics' new bulb....$50 per bulb.

Yesterday, in a speech at Northwestern University, Attorney General Eric Holder tried to explain why the President of the United States has the singular power to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without due process, without being officially charged, without even a mock trial. I've written about this several times before and when I did, it seemed like folks from both sides of the political spectrum found those claims of power to be egregiously wrongheaded and unconstitutional.

Rich Heldenfels wrote a piece for the Beacon's Saturday front page about civility in our political discourse. It's odd how that all works. Andrew Breitbart, an unstable and duplicitous man pretending to be a journalist passes away at 43....and Rush Limbaugh goes on one of his monthly-period "you are a slut" rants.....and those become the wingnut straws that break the Villagers "both sides do it" incivility-camel's back.

Heldenfels quotes Kathleen Jamieson extensively in his piece. Jamieson is co-founder of the group FactCheck.org.

Time to take a wide angle shot of the nation's near term political future.

I concede that November's general election is still 8 months away....and that a lot can change in 8 months. At the same time, and basing my prediction on what we've seen thus far, it sure looks to me like President Obama will earn a second term.